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Epic & Msn data

Epic	ASX
Time:	16:47:02
Mid Price:	2095.23
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Fifty Two Week High:
Fifty Two Week Low:
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Period & price data

Period	Price
Now:	2095.23
3 Months ago:
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Additional information

Additional	Information
Market:	All Share Index
Sector:	General Mining
Epic:	ASX
News:	Latest news
Web Site:	UK Market Wrap
Other Articles:	24-10-200822-10-200820-10-2008

Monday UK Market Round Up

Well what a crappo day for the global stock markets! 

Losses on the main UK indices were broad-based and unrelenting, hitting everything from financials to miners, utilities to retailers. In fact, not one constituent of the FTSE 100 ended in the blue.

 
To rub salt in the wound, investor's with an appetite for shorting financial equities could do nothing but sit on the sidelines while banks plunged yet again. The ill thought out ban on short selling financials continues to have negligible impact.

The FTSE ended down an eye-watering 7.8% today by close of trading, the worst one-day fall in two decades.  It was close run between financials and mining groups for worst performers.

Xstrata (LSE: XTA) plunged an eye watering 19% while Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS) dived 20%.  Fresnillo (LSE: FRES), the world's largest silver producer, and a new entrant to the FTSE 100 tanked 20% too, and Kazakhmys (LSE: KAZ) fell even harder, down almost 27%!    Oil & Gas producers didn't fare much better, as oil once again came under pressure. Cairn Energy (LSE: CNE) fell 17%,  BP (LSE: BP) dropped 8%, Royal Dutch Shell (LSE: RDBS) fared slightly better, 'only' falling 7%.  The best of a bad lot were more defensive stocks.  GlaxoSmithKline (LSE:GSK) and AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) slipped 3.4% and 4.8% respectively.  Vodafone (LSE: VOD) also fared better than many, dropping 3.6%.  

The faint glimmer of hope for British bulls looking ahead to tomorrow was a 400 point rebound on the Dow Jones, which at one point fell almost 800 points to 9525.  This may provide some reprieve tomorrow morning, and investor's will no doubt begin to focus on the odds of the Bank of England cutting interest rates later this week.

Company specific news was thin on the ground.  Of note, FTSE 250 media group Taylor Nelson Sofres finally caved in and recommended shareholders accept an cash and share offer from larger rival WPP Group (LSE: WPP).

Also on the FTSE 250, Meggitt plc (LSE: MGGT) announced a 'multi-million dollar contract to supply the main wheels, nose wheels, carbon brakes and advanced brake-by-wire brake control system for the new Gulfstream G250 aircraft.

Kesa Electricals (LSE: KESA) the electrical retailing group, announced that Jean-Noel Labroue has decided to retire as CEO, and would be replaced by Thierry Falque-Pierrotin, who is joining the Group on 5 January 2009.

Business processing group, Xchanging plc (LSE: XCH), announced that it would acquire a 75% stake in Cambridge Solutions for £45 million in cash and approximately 15.25 million shares.

WS Atkins (LSE: ATK) also announced an acquisition. The engineering group said it had snapped up MG Bennett & Associates for £2.5 million in cash.

TR Property Investment Trust (LSE: TRY) boosted its coffers after confirming the disposal of the 54,600 square feet 'Elizabeth House' office property in Woking for £7.5 million.

Easyjet (LSE: EZJ) reported passenger figures for September 2008.  The total number of passengers increased by 22.1% from September 2007, and the load factor also increased to 86.9% from 85.2% a year earlier - not too shabby.

Further down the market, Solar Integrated Technology (LSE: SIT) received good news in the form of a US Senate vote in favour of extending tax credits for commercial solar installations by 8 years. As a result, Solar Integrated said it believed the United States would become the largest solar market in the world.

Braemore Resources plc (JSE: BRE; AIM: BRR) announced that it had entered into an agreement with Atomaer Holdings, its largest shareholder, to remove "the potential for competition between the two companies," today. The agreement covers a wide range of points, but the primary points included first right of refusal to Braemore over any new projects acquired by Atomaer Group, the appointment of two directors by Atomaer to the board of Braemore as long as its interest remains above 30% of the company, and previous management functions performed by Atomaer will be transferred to Braemore.  Braemore and Atomaer also agreed to resolve the conversion of performance shares held by Atomaer.

Discovery Metals (AIM: DME, ASX: DML), the base metals development company with projects in Botswana, announced a significant increase in the tonnage and grade of the Plutus Prospect. Discovery Metals reported a new inferred mineral resource of 15.9 million tonnes with an average grade of 1.6% copper and 16.4 grams per tonne silver using a 0.6% copper cut-off.  The new resource represented an increase of 10% on the tonnage, but far more encouraging for the company, a 25% increase in the copper grade and a 30% increase in the silver grade

Bezant Resources  (AIM: BZT)  the  gold  and  copper  exploration  company operating   in   the   Philippines   and   Tanzania, has announced assay results for diamond drill hole BC-55 at its Mankayan Project located in the Philippines.  This is the fifth hole to be completed in the Company's ten hole (approximate 11,000m) drilling programme. Highlights include; total of 792m copper-gold porphyry intersections of which 165m of grade intersections averages 0.65% Cu, 0.76g/t Au and 1.5g/t Ag. The results confirm good homogeneity across the entire section and the company plan to upgrade a portion of their Mankayan resource to indicated status.
 
Ormonde Mining (AIM: ORM) reported  drilling results  from  its  Barruecopardo Tungsten Project in Salamanca, Spain. An estimated true thickness of 34m grading 0.3% WO[3] from infill drilling includes a high-grade interval of 10m grading 0.7% WO[3]. Further infill drilling will allow the initial design of a mining project, based upon the current resource of 3.0Mt grading 0.6% WO[3]. High grade tungsten intervals of 1m grading 1.1% and 3m grading 0.8% WO[3] were intersected some 100m below the depth of previous drilling.

Gulfsands Petroleum (AIM: GPX)  has announced that drilling operations have commenced on the Yousefieh-1 exploration well in Block 26. The Yousefieh-1 well which is located very close to existing Infrastructure and 3km from the Khurbet East Early Production Facility (EPF) is planned to be drilled to a total vertical depth of approximately 2300 meters, and will target Cretaceous aged reservoirs identified within a structure located immediately adjacent to the Khurbet East Oil Field. The Company expects that drilling operations will be completed within 45 days.

Firestone Diamonds (AIM: FDI), the diamond mining and exploration company announced significant progress in its evaluation work on the BK11, BK16 and Tsabong projects in Botswana. At the BK11 kimberlite, which is located only 20 kilometres south-east of Debswana’s Orapa Mine and 5 kilometres north-east of African Diamonds, Firestone stated that additional drilling and bulk sampling is ahead schedule.  The importance of BK11 has increased considerably to the company since encouraging results were released earlier this year suggesting the project could be economically viable.

 
Mediterranean Oil & Gas (AIM: MOG) reported a Proven plus Probably (P1+P2) gas reserve on the field of 6.5 billion cubic feet, with a further 10 billion cubic feet of Possible Gas Reserves (P3).  The gas resources report is in addition to the 20 million barrels of P1+P2 reserves of recoverable oil already certified at Ombrina Mare, and reinforces the group’s conviction that the field has the potential to move the company up to a mid-sized oil and gas producer.

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